Twins for Christmas by Alison Roberts

negated his triumph at saving that child?
    They hadn’t dealt with anything out of the ordinary. Broken bones and cuts that needed suturing. Abdominal pains and chest pains and difficulty breathing from one cause or another. Headaches. A man with a fish-hook in his finger. Someone who’d been kicked by a pony. A heart attack. There   had   been a DOA, but Rory had been in the middle of cutting out that fish-hook at the time, and Kate had been assisting. The patient hadn’t even made it inside the department, and it had been Braden who’d gone out to the bay to do the paperwork required before the ambulance could move on to the morgue.
    Kate could remember pretty much the entire day, because she’d been over and over it in her head so many times. It had been business as usual, and that had meant Rory knowing everything that was happening in his depart ment. Taking charge of anything serious. Smoothing over any bumps.
    Always interested. Always smiling. Always flirting a little because it came as naturally as breathing. It was his way of making women feel special. From an elderly female patient to a nervous new nurse aide.
    ‘Nearly there, Florence,’ Rory was saying now. ‘We’ll get a dressing on this, then I reckon it’s going to heal and you’ll be just as gorgeous as ever.’
    ‘Get away with you!’ Florence scoffed, but Kate could feel the cheek muscles under her fingers bunching as the older woman smiled broadly.
    Kate wasn’t smiling. He hadn’t changed at all, and right now, the Rory McCulloch they all knew and loved was about as far as she could get from the image of a family man.
    It had been a stupid fantasy, pulling fragments of time out for closer inspection. A smile, perhaps, or a compliment—like   you always were the best —and making it into something it could never be.
    Kate had honestly believed she was finally over doing that. She had been dealing with this pregnancy and planning her future on the basis of being alone. Rory had walked into her life tonight and here she was, doing it again. Watching his interaction with Lucy and the other children and thinking that he could be that way with his own children.
    That he could be the perfect father if he chose to stay in London.
    But how hard would that be? Having to see him every second weekend as she handed over her babies? Knowing they would be together but she would be excluded? Knowing that he would love his children but she would only ever be their mother? Having to hear about a series of ‘special friends’ of Daddy’s? The ever-changing parade of woman that Rory would no doubt include in his life because he always had.
    What on earth had ever made her think that   she   could offer him enough to make him want to change?
    Fantasy evaporated, and the reality of what she might have to face was daunting. Kate wasn’t some kind of saint. And she wasn’t going to be a martyr. She deserved better than this, dammit!
    It was her job to put the dressing over Florence’s beautifully stitched wound.
    ‘You’ll need to keep this clean and dry,’ she advised automatically. ‘If it gets red or painful or has a discharge you’ll need to come back in or see your own doctor.’
    ‘When will the stitches have to come out?’
    ‘In five to seven days. I’ll check with Dr McCulloch.’
    ‘He’s gone to see Mary, hasn’t he?’
    ‘Yes. I think he’ll be checking up on the children, too. Try not to worry.’
    ‘I don’t have to,’ Florence said with a smile. ‘Not if   he’s   in charge.’
     
     
     
    ‘S O YOU’LL MAKE SURE   everything in the bus is kept safe? Particularly those Christmas presents?’
     
    ‘I’m onto it,’ the young policeman assured Rory. He unclipped the radio from the shoulder strap of his protectivevest. ‘You just leave it with me.’
    Knowing that the gifts intended for the children would eventually reach their destination was satisfying.
    So was discovering that he’d been right about the